(Andy Synn reviews the new self-titled album by the newly named Vattnet, an exception to the Rule in our blog’s title.) Let’s get down to brass tacks right away, shall we? Just because a band changes their sound doesn’t make them sell-outs/traitors/false… but, by the same token, when a band you love does decide […]

(Today Austin Weber begins a multi-part series focusing on 2017 releases that we haven’t previously reviewed. Parts 2 and 3 will follow tomorrow and Thursday, and further installments are expected next week.) In spite of what the naysayers will tell you, I’m of the opinion that there’s an absolutely ridiculous amount of good metal […]

I’m a relative latecomer to the music of Golden Bats, a distinctive one-man mauling machine from the vicinity of Brisbane, Australia. The first release I heard was the Falling Sparrows EP that surfaced last spring. It made an impact, something like a grenade going off inside my skull. I’m now keeping a close watch […]

I realize this is the third day in a row when I’ve compiled a round-up of new music. Some of you who don’t check in with us over the weekends are going to find a truckload of new tracks that have appeared since the end of the day Friday. Moderation, however, has never been […]

I wrestled with myself over how to arrange the songs I’ve chosen for this Saturday round-up, trying to figure out the best flow from one track or video to another. No two of them are in the exact same genre space (although three of them do incorporate elements of industrial metal), and that complicated […]

Cover art for Aosoth by Benjamin A. Vierling Greetings and Happy Fall Equinox, one of two days in the year when every place on earth gets the exact same amount of daylight (almost exactly 12 hours today) and four days since my last round-up. I’m awash in good new music again (always). The fact […]

Almost two years on from the release of their debut album Anxiety Never Descending, the Polish death metal band Kult Mogił (whose name translates to “cult of graves”) have surfaced again with a new EP named Portentaque. It is an immaculate rendering of madness, each of its three tracks intricately plotted, constantly changing, persistently fascinating, and deeply […]

High Fighter is a fresh sludgy formation from Germany. Just a year ago the band recorded their first EP under sacramental title The Goat Ritual, and take a look – they’re already going on tour with Ahab in October! If you’re ready for an intransigent sludge attack then check our interview with Mona Miluski, High Fighter frontwoman.

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Hail Mona! How are you there? I’d like to ask you to shed some light on High Fighter’s origin, so I hope that you have nothing against a few questions about it.

Absolutely not, keep them coming. Thanks for having us on No Clean Singing.

(Here’s the latest installment of KevinP’s series in which he runs down his list of the best releases from the preceding month.)

August was been absolutely stacked with quality releases, which caused me to make a few hard choices (i.e., cuts). A few albums worth your time that didn’t make the list were from: Krisiun, Ogotay, and Sources of I. Also, I went back and forth on the ranking between numbers 2-5, and really, depending on my mood, I could change them up, that’s how much I enjoyed all of them. This month’s numero uno though was head and shoulders above the rest, and released by a perennial NCS favorite.

5. Creeping – Revenant

This is the third full-length by this New Zealand trio and the first one I’ve heard by them. Why exactly are these kiwis not more well known? That kinda baffles me. Black doom with a healthy dose of death metal goodness thrown into the mixture. It’s grimy, it’s dark, and it’s just a visciously good album.

I am someone who is relatively new to the Ahab fold. NCS reader blend77 recommended the band to me last year when I was just beginning my descent into the subterranean mausoleum of doom metal lore. Ahab’s 2006 debut The Call Of The Wretched Sea remains their crowning achievement in the minds of many. Nevertheless, I began my exploration of their music with The Giant, the band’s third album released in 2012. From there, I worked my way backward to their 2009 offering The Divinity Of Oceans. I finished with The Call…, which I mentioned above.

Ahab loyalists are aware of the band’s devotion to nautical and marine literature. But if you’re new to Ahab, then you might like to know that their albums are each based on books relating to the ocean. As a writer, this fact immediately enticed me about the band’s music. You see, sometimes metal is like a Z-grade horror film. Sometimes you just want to lay back on your couch, turn on the television, and zone out. You’ve got your trusty go-to food-and-beverage combo while you’re enamored by Transdimensional Transgendered Zombies From Planet Squiddleboxtoastmeat or some other nugget of modern cinematic camp. Plenty of metal bands cater to that particular appetite and I’ve enjoyed my share.

But Ahab needs to be absorbed and mulled over. You certainly can listen to them passively as background noise. But to do so results in an insipid listening experience. That would cause you to miss out on all that Ahab have to offer, particularly on their new album The Boats Of The Glen Carrig. It is an album that must be plunged into headfirst without hesitation. You must follow them on their descent into aquatic oblivion, much like the fate of their namesake. The further down you go, the less you will see. The less you see, the more you will find.

I’m again backlogged with new music that I haven’t had a chance to send your way this week. I’m hoping I’ll have time this weekend to compile a few more collections, but to make a start here are three new songs that I hope you’ll make time to hear.

ÆVANGELIST

Yesterday the void-faring Ævangelist entity released a head-spinning 14-minute track on Bandcamp. Entitled “Abstract Catharsis”, it was originally recorded in 2013 for a four-way split that never came to fruition, and as far as I can tell, it hasn’t previously been made available for listening.

Those who are familiar with Ævangelist already know that no two of their releases (or, for that matter, individual songs) sound completely alike. “Abstract Catharsis” preserves the overarching otherworldly ambience and predatory ferocity of much of the band’s sound, but this one incorporates a lot of other different and very interesting elements.

I recently had an opportunity to interview Daniel Droste of German nautik doom band Ahab. We talked in detail about the band’s upcoming album The Boats Of The Glen Carrig, the difficulties of band life and touring while holding a full-time job, and whether or not the band has plans for future shows in the US.

Stream the interview below via Soundcloud, presented by Local X Radio (localxradio.com). Thanks to Mona and Claudia at Napalm Records and also to Jon at Freeman Promotions for arranging the interview!

I didn’t do a very good job this past week posting about new songs that I liked as they were coming out, and as a result I have a big collection of them gazing up at me with sorrowful eyes. I’ve picked four of them to recommend in this post, with the goal of keeping you off-balance. I’ve collected a few others for a “Shades of Black” post that I’m planning for tomorrow.

AHAB

A couple of days ago Germany’s Ahab premiered a music video for the first complete track off their new album The Boats of Glen Carrig, coming from Napalm Records on August 28. The name of the song is “Like Red Foam (The Great Storm)”, and I’m thoroughly hooked on it. The riffs are enormous, and they drive the song’s bleak, somewhat dissonant melodic refrain into your head like railroad spikes. I’m more a fan of the enraged roars than the clean vocals in the song (what a shock!), but it’s a minor quibble.

I’m getting a late start on the blog this morning. I spent hours on the phone with world leaders attempting to answer their urgent questions about an array of socio-economic and security crises. After a while I got tired of it and just started repeating a convenient mantra, “FUCK THE FACTS”.

AHAB

That album art up there is fucking fantastic. I have very high hopes for the album, too, which is the first one from German’s Ahab in four years. The title is The Boats of The Glen Carrig and it’s a musical interpretation of a 1907 horror novel of the same name written by William Hope Hodgson (more info about the book can be found here).

(In this guest post, Booker identifies works of literature that he was inspired to read as a result of metal, along with the specific music that provided the push. If you’ve had similar experiences, we’d like to hear about them in the Comments, along with any thoughts you might have about Booker’s post.)

Well, if you’re reading NCS, you’ve probably come to the conclusion that metal is one of mankind’s greatest creations. When I’m feeling generous I’d even expand that to music in general. You know what one of human beings’ other greatest creations is? Sending humans to an orbiting lunar body in specially controlled atmospheric craft and protective suits? Pfft, no! Using a modified virus to evoke lasting immune responses to deadly diseases? Meh.

What I’m talking about is writing. That’s right, writing, without which those other achievements wouldn’t even be possible. When you think about it, it’s pretty mind-blowing that we can scrawl lines on paper, and now digital displays, and someone else can look at those hieroglyphics and almost instantaneously discern meaning, enabling us to convey ideas and thoughts to someone else without even talking to them! From one side of the planet to another, or even from one mind to another across the abyss of time and the divide of death. Think about that after smoking a few pipes (oh my god, it’s like there’s people reading my mind!… over the internet!… and I’m reading some thoughts from someone who’s dead!… woooaahh).

And with writing came literature (and humorous toilet graffiti). Not surprisingly, given the vast array of ideas and storylines conveyed by literature, some of those works have in turn inspired musicians to craft musical works covering the same themes, and when metal musicians do it you get what I’d call a veritable orgy of humanity’s greatest creations – metal meets literature, all getting off over each other. That’s what I’m talking about! But what I’m going to cover here is taking this one step further – not just metal albums inspired by literature, but albums/songs/bands that have in turn inspired me to go back to the source and read the inspirational literature in question.

(TheMadIsraeli recently went on a reviewing rampage. We may have one from him every day this week. Today’s review focuses on “The Giant”, the new album by Germany’s Ahab, which will be released by Napalm Records on May 25.)

Doom metal is a genre that is often hard for many to accept or buy into. I get why. I didn’t even start to appreciate it until only last year when I forced myself to sit down and really listen. In the end, I found it to be ideal contemplation music, music to which I could meditate about my life. It’s not so much depressing as I find it to be the soundtrack to introspection, often the introspection of one’s mortality and shortcomings.

Funeral doom, however, is where my love for this style really shines. If you aren’t going to be chaotic and frantic, you best be as morose and macabre as possible. Four bands have accomplished this for me with the most powerful of results: Mournful Congregation, Colosseum (R.I.P), Pantheist, and Ahab.

Ahab’s new album The Giant continues their tradition of seafaring melodic death doom. Their music has always penetrated my soul to its very depths, but The Giant is a whole other beast entirely. An added strong presence of stoner vibes is evident throughout, creating something of an otherworldly experience akin to drowning yet not feeling or experiencing any of the fear, pain, or frantic desperation. You are simply accepting.

The Giant is only six songs long. That may not sound like much, until I tell you the shortest song is about eight minutes and the longest is about thirteen. Ahab have taken a much more introspective and dynamic heavy approach this time around, crafting a journey that leaves the listener feeling like that lone shipwreck survivor holding onto a single plank of wood, floating in the middle of the ocean, hoping he’ll find land soon.

Here is a typically random round-up of interesting items that cleverly captivated my eager eyes during my ludicrously limited last break from the jacked-up job that plentifully puts bread on my tilted table, unlike this NCS job, which only feeds my spirit. And the pleasurable purveyors of entertainment in this post are: Ahab (Germany), Nachtblut (Germany), Stam1na (Finland), and Ne Obliviscaris (Australia).

AHAB

NCS writer TheMadIsraeli turned me on to this German doom band at some point last winter. Doom is still a taste I am slowly acquiring, and I can’t say that I’m yet able to consume it in large quantities at a single sitting. However, at the right time and if properly prepared, I do find it tasty. And though I haven’t explored the discography of Ahab in depth, I’m interested in their new album, The Giant.

The band have used their music to explore dark literature with a nautical theme. The Call of the Wretched Sea (2006) was devoted to Melville’s novel Moby Dick, and The Divinity of Oceans (2009) was a soundtrack to the 1820 sinking of the whaling vessel The Essex, an event that partly inspired Moby Dick and was also the subject of a great more recent book, In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick. It appears The Giant will follow at least a somewhat similar nautical path.